Support for Samir Geagea Australia Trip

We are urging you to help us stop the scandalous petition by Shady Saade from Melbourne, Australia, who is making false and unwarranted claims against Dr. Samir Geagea, Leader of the Lebanese Forces Political Party who is currently visiting Australia. Please sign our petition and share with your family and friends.

Please continue reading a brief description of the true events leading to Dr. Geagea’s false imprisonment. Samir Farid Geagea is a Lebanese politician, commander and executive chairman of the Lebanese Forces; one of the largest Christian political parties in Lebanon.

Due to the outbreak of the Lebanese civil war in 1975, Dr. Samir Geagea’s studies at the university were interrupted. As military operations intensified and spread to the northern parts of the country after 1976, Samir joined the defence against the onslaught of Palestinian guerrillas and their allies. He climbed the ranks of the Kata’eb Party from a junior member in the party’s student chapter during his high school years to a member of the student chapter at the American University of Beirut (AUB).

In 1978, just a few months shy of receiving his medical degree, he was forced to leave the university and dedicate his time fully to the military struggle. He began his military career in his hometown of Bsharre, and was promoted to the various commandership positions.

By 1985, Samir Geagea had been promoted to Chief of Staff of the Lebanese Forces and shortly after, he led a movement to confront the Syrian-sponsored “Tripartite Accord”. By the end of 1986, Geagea became in full charge of the LF by the end of 1986.

Under Geagea’s leadership, the Lebanese Forces underwent a radical transformation to become the leading military, political and social organization in the country within the span of a very few years.

In 1989, Geagea saw a sound opportunity to put a definitive end to the civilwar through the Taef Accord, which was ratified by the Lebanese Parliament. In accordance with the agreement, he immediately dissolved the military and security arm of the LF and surrendered all its military assets to the Lebanese Army.

On January 24, 1990, Geagea was appointed a Minister of State in the first post-war cabinet, led by PM Omar Karami, which Geagea rejected such position due to the flagrant control of the cabinet by the Syrian regime. On May 16, 1992, Geagea was again appointed as a minister in the Rashid El-Soleh cabinet, only to refuse it again for the same reasons.

Throughout this period, it started becoming abundantly clear that Syria had no intention of abiding by the Taef Accord or withdrawing from Lebanon, and that militias aligned with Syria were not going to disarm as stipulated in the accord. Geagea became the most vocal critic of the state of affairs and the staunchest advocate for the complete implementation of the Taef Accord. His stance generated significant Syrian pressure against him, particularly as he continued to call for a Syrian retreat into the Bekaa Valley. This led Syria and its Lebanesecronies to implement what they believed would be a “final dissolving” of the LF.

On March 23, 1994, a bomb detonated in a church in the heart of the Christian areas, resulting in several deaths and injuries. The authorities immediately blamed the LF for the bombing and arrested Geagea on April 21, 1994.

Despite the usurped judicial system’s best efforts at formulating charges and fabricating evidence, the court could not make a single accusation hold against Geagea and instead resorted to indicting him on fabricated evidence from the war period.

For the next 11 years and 3 months, Samir Geagea was held in solitary confinement in a 2×3 meter underground cell, three stories below the Lebanese Ministry of Defence, where he was deprived of the most basic of rights. During his imprisonment, his partisans were constantly being abducted, tortured, and in many instances assassinated by the Syrian intelligence and their Lebanese accomplices in order to prevent them from exercising their constitutional right of freedom of expression.

Following the popular Cedar Revolution of 2005, the ensuing withdrawal of the Syrian forces and Lebanon’s regaining of its independence and sovereignty, the freely-elected Lebanese parliament freed Geagea and his comrades on July 19, 2005.

To date, Dr. Geagea remains committed to his principles, which is to continue to work towards an independent and sovereign Lebanon, without any kind of foreign influence or interference.